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Paper:
Arielli, N (2014) When are foreign volunteers useful? Israel's transnational
soldiers in the war of 1948 re-examined. Journal of Military History, 78 (2). 703 724.
White Rose Research Online
[email protected]
When are Foreign Volunteers Useful?
Israel’s Transnational Soldiers in the
War of 1948 Re-examined

Nir Arielli
Abstract
The literature on foreign, or “transnational,” war volunteering has focused overwhelmingly on the motivations and experiences of the volunteers. This approach has largely overlooked other aspects of the
phenomenon such as the military and political use that host states can
derive from foreign ighters. This article focuses on the enlistment of international volunteers by the Israeli armed forces in the war of 1948–49.
Drawing on a combination of archival material, interviews with veterans,
and secondary literature, the article assesses the relative importance
of “Machal” (Israel’s overseas volunteers) by comparing the role played
by these foreigners with that of transnational volunteers who fought in
other twentieth-century conlicts.
T
he literature on foreign, or “transnational,” war volunteering has focused
overwhelmingly on the motivations and experiences of the volunteers. While
the interest in soldiers who choose “to go to war on their own initiative without the
aid and comfort of their patrimony” is understandable,1 there is much more that
can be learned from the phenomenon. One of the largely unexplored issues in this
context is how and when were foreign volunteers useful, militarily and politically,
1. Michael W. Jackson, Fallen Sparrows: he International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War
(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1994), 139.
Nir Arielli is a lecturer in international history at the University of Leeds. He is the author
of Fascist Italy and the Middle East, 1933–1940 (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave, 2010) and
co-editor (with Bruce Collins) of Transnational Soldiers: Foreign Military Enlistment in the
Modern Era (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave, 2012).
he Journal of Military History 78 (April 2014): 703-724.
Copyright © 2014 by he Society for Military History, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or
transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing from the Editor, Journal of Military History, George C.
Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute, P.O. Drawer 1600, Lexington, VA 24450. Authorization to photocopy items for internal
and personal use is granted by the copyright holder for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC),
121 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 USA (www.copyright.com), provided the appropriate fee is paid to the CCC.

703
NIR ARIELLI
to their hosts? To tackle this question, this article focuses on the enlistment of
international volunteers by the Israeli armed forces in the war of 1948–49.
hese foreigners came from several countries with the largest contingents
arriving from Britain, South Africa, France, the United States, Canada, and Latin
America. Upon enlisting, these volunteers were normally promised a number of
incentives, one of them being that the cost of the journey back to their home
country would be covered at the end of their service.2 here is some debate
regarding the exact number of volunteers. he irst time the Israeli Ministry of
Defense attempted to conduct a head count of overseas volunteers was in June
1949, after the war had ended and many of the foreigners had already left the
country. he ministry estimated the overall number of volunteers at 2,405.3 In the
1980s historian David Bercuson argued that more than 5,000 foreigners fought
for the Israelis while the volunteers’ veterans association puts the igure at 4,400
individuals from ifty-six countries.4 he discrepancy in igures is partially the
result of diferent deinitions of who constituted a foreign volunteer, and who
could be classed as a new immigrant. here has also been some debate regarding
the inclusion of foreigners whose involvement began before the outbreak of
war and who did not engage in ighting against Arab forces.5 he irst armed
foreign volunteers were used as part of the Zionist attempt to break through the
British naval blockade of Palestine in 1945–48. A few foreigners had enlisted
in the Haganah, the precursor of the Israeli military, during the irst phase
of the war between 29 November 1947 and 15 May 1948, when the Yishuv
(the Jewish community in Palestine) fought against the Palestinian Arabs. he
vast majority, however, arrived after the Israeli declaration of independence
in May 1948. Once the State of Israel was established, the General Staf of
the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) created the Machal department (mitnadvey
chutz laaretz, “overseas volunteers”). While the department’s role was strictly
administrative—to take charge of the volunteers’ welfare—its name came to
encompass the volunteers as a whole, many of them still referring to themselves
as machalniks more than sixty years later.
Predictably, the literature on Machal has been trapped in the conlicting
narratives on the Arab-Israeli conlict. he majority of these texts are memoirs that
were written by veteran volunteers, as well as oicial and semi-oicial histories
2. “Conditions of service” [no date], ile 323, 7335/1949, Israel Defense Forces Archives,
Tel Hashomer [hereafter: IDFA].
3. Mordecai Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence” [no date], pp. 4–6, ile 108,
1046/1970, IDFA.
4. Compare: David Bercuson, he Secret Army (Toronto: Letser & Orpen Dennys, 1983),
xiii; and Maurice Ostrof, “he 1948 War of Independence in a Nutshell,” World Machal website, accessible on: http://www.machal.org.il/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id
=120&Itemid=154&lang=he [last accessed on 29 December 2012].
5. For more on the evolving deinitions of Israel’s foreign volunteers, see: Yaacov Markovitzky,
Machal: Overseas Volunteers in Israel’s War of Independence (Tel Aviv: World Machal, 2003), 7–8.
704 
THE JOURNAL OF
Foreign Volunteers in Israel’s War of 1948
that approach the topic from a rather patriotic or pro-Israeli point of view.6 he
works of David Bercuson, Murray Greenield, and Joseph Hochstein for instance,
sought to highlight the contribution of the “forgotten heroes” whose deeds have
been “lost in the historical shule.”7 In sharp contrast, Dan Freeman-Maloy,
writing in the Journal of Palestine Studies, has accused Israel’s foreign volunteers
of partaking in the expulsion, massacre, and rape of the Palestinian population,
though the evidence he produces to support this claim is conjectural.8
his article seeks to assess the relative importance of Machal by comparing
the role played by these foreigners with that of transnational volunteers who
fought in other twentieth-century conlicts. While the mobilizing ideologies in
the conlicts that are discussed in the following pages varied drastically, there is
much to learn from the similarities and diferences in the structural elements
of the respective recruitment processes. Furthermore, if diferent empires can
be compared to one another, and diferent revolutions can be assessed together
despite diverging historical circumstances, surely the same applies to transnational
war volunteers. Ultimately, the historical signiicance of a phenomenon is best
understood within a comparative context.
I
As a point of departure, the level of involvement and commitment of a host
state in the recruitment process needs to be ascertained. In the case of Machal, the
recruitment of experienced servicemen from abroad began as a state-sponsored
project, albeit by a state-to-be. David Ben Gurion, Chairman of the Executive
of the Jewish Agency, played a pivotal role in initiating this process. He began
examining the possibility of purchasing surplus military aircraft and other war
matériel in North America in July 1945. In December 1946 he oicially assumed
the defense portfolio which later evolved into the role of Defense Minister. By the
autumn of 1947, Ben Gurion had reached the resolution that the armed Jewish
militias in Palestine must be transformed into a modern military force based on
a Western (mainly British and American) model. He wanted professional and
technical know-how to supplement the Yishuv’s military capabilities. Hence,
from October 1947 onwards, he instructed Haganah representatives in Western
countries to approach World War II veteran pilots, air force mechanics, sailors,
6. For memoirs written by veteran volunteers see, for example: Ben Dunkelman, Dual Allegiance: An Autobiography (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976); Gordon Levett, Flying under Two Flags
(London: Frank Cass, 1994); David Teperson, Eyes of the Beholder (Kfar Shmaryahu: Machal Museum, 2008) [in Hebrew]. For oicial and semi-oicial histories see: Henry Katzew, South Africa’s
800: he Story of South African Volunteers in Israel’s War of Birth (Ra’anana: Telfed, 2003); Markovitzky, Machal: Overseas Volunteers in Israel’s War of Independence; Avi Cohen, ed., he History of the
Air Force in the War of Independence, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 2004) [in Hebrew].
7. Bercuson, he Secret Army, 233; Murray S. Greenield and Joseph M. Hochstein, he Jews’
Secret Fleet ( Jerusalem & New York: Gefen, 1987), xvii.
8. Dan Freeman-Maloy, “Mahal and the Dispossession of the Palestinians,” Journal of Palestine Studies 40, no. 2 (2011): 43–61, especially 53.
MILITARY HISTORY
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and commanders with operational experience with the view of inviting them to
join the armed forces of the Jews in Palestine.9 In internal correspondence these
recruits were referred to as “experts” or “specialists.”10
When the recruitment process is examined, it becomes apparent that the
initial thrust came from the Jewish leadership in Palestine. As early as January
1946, Zionist emissaries such as Ze’ev (Danny) Schind and Akiva Skidell recruited
American and Canadian sailors to take part in Aliyah Bet—the shipping of “illegal”
Jewish immigrants from Europe to Palestine, in violation of the British naval
blockade. Approximately 240 men enlisted for this project.11 After the United
Nations voted to partition Palestine in late November 1947, Moshe Shertok, who
would soon become Israel’s irst Foreign Minister, approached General John H.
Hilldring, Assistant Secretary of State (under George Marshall), and asked for help
in obtaining two or three military advisers for the Jewish state-to-be.12 Haganah
representative Shlomo Shamir also sent out discreet feelers among high-ranking
oicers and technical experts in the United States. Shamir was soon put in touch
with U.S. Army Colonel David “Mickey” Marcus who promised he would try to
ind retired generals for the task. When he found that none of those he approached
would agree to go without assurance from American authorities that their army
status and citizenship would not be jeopardized, he ofered his own services. “I may
not be the best man for the job,” he told Shamir, “but I’m the only one willing to
go.”13 Arriving in Palestine in January 1948, his initial task was to advise the Zionist
leadership on military command, control, and training. Soon he was appointed
commander of the Jerusalem front and given the rank of Aluf (the contemporary
equivalent would be a Major General). Tragically for everyone involved, Marcus
was killed following a friendly ire incident in June 1948. Buried with full military
honors at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, his time in Israeli service was
later portrayed in the ilm Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), starring Kirk Douglas.
he international Zionist recruitment efort took place against the backdrop
of a large-scale fund raising campaign that was conducted among several Jewish
communities. he recruiters of military personnel relied on and expanded upon preexisting networks for the secret procurement of weapons as well as on the help of
9. David Ben Gurion, he Restored State of Israel (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1969), 66–69 [in
Hebrew]; Cohen, he History of the Air Force, 48–49; Ricky-Dale Calhoun, “Arming David: he
Haganah’s Illegal Arms Procurement Network in the United States, 1945–49,” Journal of Palestine Studies 36 (2007): 24–25.
10. See, for instance: “Machal Specialists—Conditions of Service” [no date], ile 4,
901/1971; and “Correspondence regarding experts from abroad working for the navy” [1949],
ile no. 143, 1000827/1958, IDFA.
11. Greenield and Hochstein, he Jews’ Secret Fleet, 36–39; Aviva Halamish, “American
volunteers in illegal immigration to Palestine, 1946–1948,” Jewish History 9 (1995): 91–106;
Markovitzky, Machal, 10–14.
12. Bercuson, he Secret Army, 52.
13. Zipporah Porath, Col. David (Mickey) Marcus: A Soldier for All Humanity (New York:
American Jewish Historical Society, 2010), 5.
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THE JOURNAL OF
Foreign Volunteers in Israel’s War of 1948
numerous local Zionist organizations which operated in the United States, Canada,
South Africa, and other countries. Major Wellesley Aron, for example, who had
served in the British Army during the Second World War, was sent to the U.S.
by the Jewish Agency after the war and was later put in charge of the New York
oice of Land and Labor, ostensibly a Jewish youth group but, in actual fact, an
organization which recruited combat veterans for service in Palestine.14 For the air
force there was a separate recruitment efort. Al Schwimmer, an American light
engineer who worked for TWA, was authorized by Haganah representatives Yehuda
Arazi and Teddy Kollek to procure surplus aircraft, pilots, and technicians, and he
was given substantial sums of money to do so. After starting on his own, Schwimmer
eventually worked in collaboration with Heyman Shamir, who had been put in
charge of acquisitions and training for the ledgling Jewish air force in Palestine.15
A similar recruiting efort took place in Britain and other Western countries, though
on a much smaller scale.16 In countries where pre-existing legislation restricted
citizens from enlisting for foreign military service, the recruiters had to conduct
their work in secret to elude the authorities. his was the case in Britain, with its
Foreign Enlistment Act, and in the United States, where both the Neutrality Act
and Nationality Act17 could be brought to bear on the volunteers.
he service of foreigners was intended to be voluntary and was often
underpinned by feelings of solidarity, as the vast majority of the recruits—well over
95 percent—were Jewish. However, when the need arose, Ben Gurion was willing
to pay to get the personnel he believed the future Jewish state required. During
the recruitment of airmen in North America, Heyman Shamir soon realized that
Palestine-level salaries were insuicient and, taking into consideration the realities
of the local market, began to ofer monthly payments of $400–$500. Salaries of
experienced combat veterans could be as high as $600 per month.18 his raises
the question of whether or not the overseas volunteers who fought for Israel in
1948 could be categorized as mercenaries. According to a UN convention that
was drafted in the 1980s and went into force in 2001, a mercenary is a person
“motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private
gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conlict, material
14. Bercuson, he Secret Army, 55; Calhoun, “Arming David,” 26.
15. Yossi Melman, “Captain America,” Haaretz, 25 August 2008, accessible on: http://www.
haaretz.co.il/misc/1.1351663 [last accessed on 25 December 2012]; Doron Rosen, In Quest of the
American Treasure: he Israeli Underground (the Haganah) Activity in the U.S. in 1945–49 ( Jerusalem: Ministry of Defense, 2008), 204–11 [in Hebrew].
16. See, for instance: Testimony by Rai hon, ile 196.5, Haganah Archives, Tel Aviv [hereafter: HA].
17. “Sec. 401. A person who is a national of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by: […] (c) Entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign
state unless expressly authorized by the laws of the United States…” he Nationality Act, 76th
Congress, 3rd session, ch. 876, 14 October 1940.
18. Lon Nordeen, Fighters Over Israel (London: Guild Publishing, 1991), 14; Melman,
“Captain America”; Rosen, In Quest, 208.
MILITARY HISTORY
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NIR ARIELLI
compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of
similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party.”19 If this deinition is
to be adopted for the case at hand, even though it did not exist at the time, then
the majority of the Machal volunteers would fall outside its parameters. Indeed,
as noted above, these foreigners were overwhelmingly of Jewish descent and their
declared aim in coming to Israel was the desire to help fortify and defend the
nascent Jewish state. he salaries they received were equal to those given to local
soldiers, though volunteers from certain countries were entitled to additional
“pocket money” from funds raised by their communities abroad.20 On the other
hand, there were some pilots who went to Israel primarily because they were bored
with post–World War II life and wanted to see some action. hose among them
who received substantially higher salaries than the locals could, in contemporary
terms, be characterized as mercenaries.21
Once they were recruited, the volunteers had to be transported to the war
zone. he global efort of bringing them to Israel, and indeed much of the success
of the international Zionist recruitment and arms purchase network, depended
on French acquiescence. As Meir Zamir has recently shown, following World
War II, France sought to regain its pre-war position as a Great Power. French
military and intelligence circles believed that an Arab victory in Palestine would
enhance the prestige of the Arab League and further jeopardize France’s position
in North Africa. In contrast, a Jewish victory would divert the attention of Arab
public opinion from North Africa to Palestine. his idea appealed to the French.
Furthermore, there was broad public support in France for the Zionists, partially
as a result of the Holocaust and partially as a means for the French to get back
at the British for their role in humiliating them by driving France out of the
Levant. France’s approach in aiding the Zionists manifested itself in clandestine
collaboration between the French army and the secret services of the Haganah,
which included the exchange of intelligence. In addition, the French authorities
turned a blind eye to the purchase and transit of arms across French territory and
through French ports.22 Hence, the fairly free passage of international volunteers
from France to Israel was made possible.
19. “International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of
Mercenaries,” resolution 44/34, 4 December 1989, Oice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, accessible on http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/mercenaries.htm
[last accessed on 25 December 2012].
20. For more on equal pay, see: Levett, Flying under Two Flags, 148. On machalniks’ additional monthly allowance, see, for instance: J. Voet, Secretary of the Zionist organization in
Holland, to Ministry of Defense, 25 March 1949, J24/132, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem
[hereafter CZA].
21. For more on boredom, see: Nordeen, Fighters Over Israel, 14. For a brief discussion of
mercenary aspects in the recruitment, see: Freeman-Maloy, “Mahal and the Dispossession,” 47.
22. Meir Zamir, “‘Bid’ for Altalena: France’s covert action in the 1948 war in Palestine,”
Middle Eastern Studies 46 (2010): 17–58. See also: Amitzur Ilan, he Origins of the Arab-Israeli
Arms Race (London: Macmillan, 1996), 186.
708 
THE JOURNAL OF
Foreign Volunteers in Israel’s War of 1948
In Paris, the activities of the Zionist recruitment network were conducted
much more openly than in the United States or Britain. his beneitted not only
the large contingent of more than 500 French and Francophone volunteers but also
those of other nationalities. When the British pilot Gordon Levett arrived in Paris
he found the area around the oices on the Avenue de la Grande Armée, where
British volunteers were generally sent, to be swarming with would-be volunteers
from several countries.23 hose arriving were temporarily housed in cheap hotels.
Much like those who had joined the International Brigades during the Spanish
Civil War a decade earlier, the Machal volunteers were transported from Paris to
southern France in small groups, once a suiciently large contingent had gathered.
Northwest of Marseilles was the large former military camp of Grand Arenas that
was taken over by the Zionist organization HaHalutz and turned into a transit
camp for Jews waiting to immigrate to Palestine. It ofered a perfect cover for
the volunteers and, in fact, some of them were soon incorporated in the camp’s
administration.24 After an initial screening, recruits were sent for training at a
small country manor in Trets and in the surrounding hills. his training included
grenade throwing, pistol and rile shooting, and some rudimentary Hebrew
lessons, as well as a short course in the history of the Zionist movement.25 he
fact that the Zionists were allowed to use Grand Arenas is in itself proof of the
favorable disposition of the French authorities towards the Zionist movement.
Further evidence is provided by Avi Grant, a former British volunteer, who recalls
that when local gendarmes came to “inspect” the training camp at Trets they were
received with wine, American cigarettes, and a friendly chat. As they were about
to leave, the Haganah’s man in charge gave each of the gendarmes an envelope
with money, “and that was the search!”26 After staying in France for periods that
varied between a number of days and several weeks, the volunteers were sent by
ship to Israel, the vast majority arriving after the establishment of the state.27
he eiciency of the Zionists’ organization, however, should not be
overstated. From New York Teddy Kollek, a chief recruiter and the future Mayor
of Jerusalem, complained that “every time we receive conlicting instructions.
First there was an order to stop recruiting altogether. A few days later an order
was received to recruit 200 men.” Rai hon, the Haganah’s commander in
Britain, lamented the fact that would-be recruits were given unrealistic promises
23. Levett, Flying under Two Flags, 128.
24. Interviews with Avi Grant, 21 December 2010, and Eleanor Lieber, 27 December
2010.
25. Bercuson, he Secret Army, 78; Judah Ben David, Sword in Foreign Lands: he Haganah
in Europe, 1945–1948 (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1978), 247 [in Hebrew].
26. Interview with Avi Grant, 21 December 2010.
27. Some of the recruits from North America were lown to Prague or Rome to assist with
the training of pilots or the smuggling of aircraft and weapons, and thus did not pass through
France. Volunteers from Finland also reached Israel via Czechoslovakia. Rosen, In Quest, 210;
Hannu Reime, “Un-Finnish business,” Haaretz, 8 October 2010, accessible on: http://www.
haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/un-innish-business-1.317886 [last accessed on 27 July 2013].
MILITARY HISTORY
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NIR ARIELLI
which could not be held.28 It was only in 1949, after most recruits had already
been enlisted for some time, that a deinition of who ought to be considered part
of Machal was agreed and a uniform declaration, which all new volunteers were
obliged to sign, was drafted.29
here were problems not only with initial enlistment but also with the
transportation to Israel. For instance, some of the volunteers from Britain were told
by their recruiters to purchase military uniforms, boots, and rucksacks at army surplus
stores before leaving so that they would arrive equipped. However, the presence of
such items in their baggage meant that they were easy targets for border authorities
on the lookout for young men on their way to ight in the Middle East. his made
the journey of would-be volunteers to France more complicated.30 Furthermore,
according to several accounts, conditions at the transit camp near Marseilles were
dreadful. At least nine British volunteers were so distressed by the conditions they
encountered that they escaped from Grand Arenas and tried to make their way
back to the U.K. his proved both harmful to the Zionist efort and diicult for
the volunteers themselves. As many of the volunteers handed over their passports
upon arrival in the camp, they needed to seek assistance from the British Consul in
Marseilles to facilitate their return.31 Back in Britain, they were questioned by the
security services about the recruitment process, their trip to France, and the training
they had received. Stanley Jackson, for instance, told Special Branch in London:
“I have had the adventure knocked out of me by the terrible camp in Marseilles. I
would like to go to Palestine to join the Jewish forces there but I could not stand
waiting at that camp.”32 In addition to the diiculties in France, many veterans
recalled the boat journey to Israel as being particularly traumatic.
he point worth emphasizing for our purpose is the extent of Israel’s
involvement in the recruitment and transportation of foreign ighters. Vast
amounts of money were spent on bringing the volunteers to France and other
locations in Europe, maintaining them during their stay there, transferring them
to Israel, and funding the return trip at the end of their service. For some of
the airmen, the Israelis also covered the costs of life insurance. Because of the
clandestine and disorganized nature of the recruitment process, it is extremely
diicult to estimate the total cost of Machal-related activity between 1947 and
1949. he fragmentary evidence only gives a rough idea of the price tag involved.
28. Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence,” p. 8, IDFA.
29. “Committee on Machal,” 1949, ile 323, 7335/1949, IDFA.
30. Interviews with Zeev Feliswasser, 20 December 2010, and Menachem Silberstein, 5
January 2011.
31. he volunteers that were interviewed for this study do not know to this day why their
passports were taken away from them. According to Bercuson, the volunteers were provided with
false identity papers, usually in the name of Jews who had been murdered in Nazi death camps,
in order to bring them in under the British quota system. Bercuson, he Secret Army, 78. However, passports were still taken away from volunteers after British rule in Palestine had ended.
32. Statement of witness, 3 June 1948, HO 45/25587, he National Archives, London
(hereafter: TNA).
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THE JOURNAL OF
Foreign Volunteers in Israel’s War of 1948
For instance, in 1949, the representatives of the Israeli Ministry of Defense in the
United States spent $125,000 on recruiting and transporting light instructors
for the air force’s light school. A further $30,000 were spent on covering the
legal costs of thirteen airmen who were arrested while trying to smuggle three
bomber aircraft to Palestine, in breach of the arms embargo imposed by the U.S.
government.33 hese examples help to illustrate that the enlistment of foreigners
for military service in Israel was a host-state-led project.
If we cast a comparative glance at other instances where transnational
volunteers fought for foreign countries or political entities, the Israeli case appears
fairly unusual. For instance, the initiative to recruit foreigners and create an
international force that would help defend the Spanish Republic in 1936 did not
come from the government in Madrid. Leftist volunteers from abroad started
ofering their services to Republican forces shortly after the outbreak of war. hen,
in autumn 1936, the Communist International or Comintern in Moscow began
to recruit volunteers internationally and, following negotiations with the Spanish
government, established the International Brigades along with their headquarters
and training camp at Albacete.34 In 1991, when foreign volunteers irst started
arriving in Zagreb to join Croatian units ighting against the Serbs, the Croatian
authorities were caught unprepared and did not know exactly what to do with
them.35 According to homas Hegghammer, in the conlicts where Muslim
foreign ighters have inserted themselves from the 1980s onwards, “recruitment
was initiated and handled by other foreigners, not locals.” he Palestinian-born
cleric, Abdallah Azzam, who oversaw the recruitment of thousands of international
volunteers for the Afghan guerilla struggle against the Soviet Union, is a case in
point.36 Host-state-led recruitment of foreigners is not without precedent—the
Wafen SS actively recruited volunteers who were not German citizens during
World War II—but such cases remain rare.
33. Rosen, In Quest, 329. For the expenses entailed in maintaining the American volunteers who served on Aliyah Bet ships in 1946–1948, see: Halamish, “American volunteers,” 100.
For some of the costs related to the demobilization of the volunteers at the end of the war, see
iles KH4/11650, S41/436 and J24/132, CZA. For diiculties in ascertaining exactly how much
money was spent on the acquisition of war matériel abroad, an activity closely related to the recruitment of foreign volunteers, see: Yitzhak Greenberg, “Financing the War of Independence,”
Zionism 13 (1988): 10 [in Hebrew].
34. Rémi Skoutelsky, “L’engagement des volontaires français en Espagne républicaine,” Le
Mouvement Social 181 (1997): 8; Nir Arielli, “Getting there: Enlistment Considerations and the
Recruitment Networks of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War,” in Transnational Soldiers: Foreign Military Enlistment in the Modern Era, ed. Nir Arielli and Bruce Collins
(Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave, 2012), 224.
35. Nir Arielli, “In Search of Meaning: Foreign Volunteers in the Croatian Armed Forces,”
Contemporary European History 21 (2012): 7.
36. homas Hegghammer, “he Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters,” International Security
35 (2010): 65.
MILITARY HISTORY
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II
he Israeli efort to recruit World War II combat veterans had unexpected
consequences, in that it inspired an unanticipated wave of volunteerism. Several
hundred men and women, mainly Jews but also a number of non-Jews, ofered
their services without being approached by Zionist emissaries. In December 1947
Benjamin Dunkelman and Lionel Druker, two Canadian Jews, came up with the
initiative to recruit a Canadian unit and raise money for its equipment during a
conversation at a Zionist Organization of Canada meeting in Ottawa. According
to Druker, before arriving in New York, “we had no direct contact with the Jewish
Agency.”37 In July 1948, Ben Gurion noted in his diary that 3,000 South African
Jews had ofered their services but most of them could not be brought to Israel
because of inancial constraints.38 Another striking example of this wave of
spontaneous voluntarism was to be found in the U.K. In his memoirs from the
period, Ben-Gurion estimated that some 500 volunteers had come from the U.K.,
even though “no real recruitment was carried out” there. More recent estimates
have given igures well above 600.39
he volunteers came from a broad range of socio-economic and cultural
backgrounds. heir reasons for joining the Jewish cause in Palestine were manifold,
much as in other situations in which volunteers have enlisted for military service
abroad.40 Judging by the interviews with and memoirs published by veterans
from the U.K., it seems that their motivations could be broadly divided into
two categories: sentiments of Jewish solidarity being the irst, and more personal
reasons which were not entirely related to the conlict in Palestine making up the
second. Examples of the former are plentiful. Eleanor Lieber was a long-standing
member of Zionist youth organizations and wanted to immigrate to Palestine.
Before joining the struggle in Israel, Vidal Sassoon, the future hairdressing tycoon,
was a member of 43 Group, an organization which was composed mainly of Jewish
ex-servicemen intent on combating antisemitism.41 Dov Sugerman, even though
37. Ayala Dan’s interview with Lionel Druker, 16 May 1967, 80/34/93, HA.
38. Ben-Gurion, he Restored State of Israel, 204.
39. Ibid., 286, 253; Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (Tel Aviv:
Am Oved, 2010), 104 [in Hebrew]; “List of volunteers from the United Kingdom” [no date],
IDF folder 10, UK & Australia, Mahal Archive, Kfar Shmaryahu; Natan Adrian, “Anglo-Jewry
and the state of Israel: deining the relationship, 1948–1956,” Israel Studies 10 (2005): 127. It
should be noted that many of the volunteers who came from Britain were not British citizens.
Some were residents, who had arrived before or after World War II, while others travelled to the
U.K. from Africa and Asia in order to enlist.
40. See, for comparison: Jackson, Fallen Sparrows, 42; Nir Arielli, “Induced to volunteer?
he predicament of Jewish communists in Palestine and the Spanish Civil War,” Journal of Contemporary History 46 (2011): 854–70.
41. Interview with Eleanor Lieber, 27 December 2010; Chrissy Iley, “Vidal Sassoon interview,” Telegraph, 16 May 2011, http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8480525/
Vidal-Sassoon-interview.html [last accessed on 27 March 2013]. For more on 43 Group, see:
sub-ile 865040/236: “Recruits for Jewish Army in Palestine” [1948], HO 45/25587, TNA.
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he had “hardly any Jewish background,” became motivated after hearing proZionist speeches in London’s Hyde Park. He explained to his wife that, if he could
ight for England during World War II, he could ight for “our country” as well.42
Bernard Rose, a Cardif-born Jew, was outraged by the way Britain had dealt with
the refugees on board the ship Exodus.43 he danger that the Jews in Palestine
faced, especially in light of the recent memories of the Holocaust, inspired a large
reservoir of supporters, predominantly among Diaspora communities, where a
“1948 moment” was evident, but sometimes even further aield. Gordon Levett,
one of the few non-Jewish volunteers to come from Britain, was moved by “the
horror of the gas chambers” of World War II. He was also angered by the Labour
government’s anti-Zionist policy: “To this day I wonder what Attlee and Bevin
and their Cabinet colleagues would have said when the last Israeli Jew and Jewess
had drowned of Tel Aviv.”44
However, for some, a belief in Zionism was mixed with or overshadowed by
other, more personal motivations. Anita Koifman, who had worked for Zionist
organizations in London, pointed out that volunteering “could have illed a
void that we had after the [Second World] War.”45 Lily Myerson, the wife of
Dov Sugerman, went to Israel primarily in order to join him and her brother.46
Kurt Stern, who was born in Czechoslovakia and reached Britain as part of the
Kindertransport, lost most of his family in the Holocaust and decided to go to
Israel to join the few family members that remained. “I didn’t come for Zionism, I
came for family,” he recalled sixty-two years later.47 Avi Grant had lost his family
during the Blitz, and thus felt not only that he had very little to keep him in
England, but that he would have no one to worry about him when he was gone:
I thought that because I had no parents, because I had nobody to
mourn for me … whoever went out there at that time, went out
there prepared to die; there was no choice. his was the accepted
thing; if you volunteered to go out to Israel, you were prepared to
die because that’s how it would be.48
he pure adventure of potentially taking part in such an exciting and historic event
certainly had its attractions as well. Sol Jacobs recalled: “when I decided that I was
going to volunteer, I didn’t dwell on it at all…” His only dilemma was whether to take
up a job in Florida or go to Israel and “have something to tell my grandchildren.”49
Bernard Rose vividly remembers how, on his irst night in Israel, another British
42. Interview with Lily Myerson (wife), 23 December 2010.
43. Interview with Bernard Rose, 11 January 2011.
44. Levett, Flying under Two Flags, 124–25. For the importance of the Holocaust for
American volunteers who joined Aliyah Bet in the years 1946–48, see: Halamish, “American
Volunteers,” 93.
45. Interview with Anita Koifman and Sol Jacobs, 22 December 2010.
46. Interview with Lily Myerson, 23 December 2010.
47. Interview with Kurt Stern, 23 December 2010.
48. Interview with Avi Grant, 21 December 2010.
49. Interview with Anita Koifman and Sol Jacobs, 22 December 2010.
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volunteer shouted in his ear: “his is history, mate!”50 For the courageous and adventurous, volunteering for the Zionist movement ofered a great escape.
he military roles that some of the British volunteers carried out during the
war of 1948 were not exactly what Ben Gurion originally anticipated. Lily Myerson
worked as a secretary, initially in the army and later in the air force (eventually,
women constituted approximately 10 percent of Machal). Avi Grant worked as an
electrical engineer, mapping the electricity infrastructure of bases vacated by the
British military. Gavriel Goldshmidt was a care worker in a hospital, assisting in the
rehabilitation of soldiers who had been badly injured. In addition to combat veterans,
the IDF ended up recruiting foreign volunteers with no military experience at all.
Moshe Feingold, for instance, was not yet eighteen when he enlisted.51
While the speciic roles described above were not originally anticipated when
recruitment abroad began, the arrival of these Diaspora Jews in Israel during the
war, and in some cases their decision to remain and settle in the country, itted
in well with the aspirations of Zionist leaders. he pre-war Jewish population of
Palestine was approximately 630,000; a minority compared to the Arab population
which was about double that size. he leaders of the Yishuv and, subsequently, of
the State of Israel strove to bring as many Jews as possible to the country to ofset
this ratio. Moreover, Ben Gurion saw Israel as a melting pot of Jews from all over
the world and, in his eyes, Machal played a small part in achieving this goal. In
Behilachem Yisrael (As Israel Fought), a collection of wartime essays and speeches
that was published in the early 1950s, Ben Gurion celebrated the contribution
of “volunteering youths” from the Diaspora to the nascent Israeli air force: “a
wonderful kibbutz galuyot [gathering of the exiles], merging Jewish bravery and
fraternity, which will set an example for Jewish youths wherever they are…” He
went on to hope—the text was written in late October 1948—that this spirit
would live on after victory was attained.52
However, the realities of the absorption of the Machal volunteers did not
necessarily live up to the Zionist ideal. Indeed, a survey conducted by the IDF’s
psychological research unit among 387 Machal men and women in March 1949
found that 55 percent of the foreign volunteers had formed a negative opinion
of Israeli society.53 Tellingly, at the end of the war only about 40 percent of all
the foreigners who had served in the IDF intended to settle in Israel while the
majority chose to leave. In June 1949 a Machal oicial complained that “the boys
are going home not because they don’t want to stay on but because they are not
50. Interview with Bernard Rose, 11 January 2011.
51. Interviews with Lily Myerson, 23 December 2010; Avi Grant, 21 December 2010;
Gavriel Goldshmidt, 3 January 2011; Moshe Feingold, 20 December 2010. For the breakdown
of volunteers according to gender, see: Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence,” p. 30,
IDFA.
52. David Ben Gurion, Behilachem Yisrael (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1975), 287–88 [in Hebrew].
53. Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence,” pp. 29–31, IDFA.
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able to obtain the necessary assistance which a new arrival requires in order to get
him set up in the country on even the most modest scale.”54 G. Daniel Cohen
has recently argued that the Machal volunteers represented a lexible approach
to Zionism. While Ben Gurion promoted a melting pot ethos, the volunteers’
Zionism was of a more “sentimental” nature, and their willingness to be mobilized
was temporary and ad hoc.55 Alas, this is a topic that warrants a separate study.
For the purpose of this article it is important to ascertain to what extent these
transnational soldiers—both those that were invited and those who enlisted of
their own initiative—contributed to the Israeli war efort.
III
A comparison to other cases of transnational mobilization will help to assess
the relative importance of the Machal volunteers. It can be argued that host states,
or host entities, can potentially derive three types of beneits from enlisting foreign
ighters: some kind of propaganda value; a solution to manpower shortages; and
some form of qualitative edge over the enemy.
he propagandistic value of foreign volunteers to a country’s cause could be
internal—helping to boost morale at home—or external, by providing international
exposure and perhaps even a semblance of international legitimacy to the cause they are
ighting for. In the second half of the 1930s, the International Brigades certainly helped
the Republican government receive favorable coverage in Left-leaning newspapers
outside Spain. he presence of well-known igures among the volunteers, such as the
French novelist André Malraux, and the partisan reports about the Brigades written
by Ernest Hemingway and others went some way towards keeping international
attention focused on the Spanish Civil War. Indeed, Valentine Cunningham has
argued that, although some Western authors supported Franco:
merely making catalogues of the names of the writers and artists
who did something for the Republican side does bear out one
of the major distinctive claims of that side, that the forces of the
legally elected Spanish government were struggling not just in the
name of freedom and democracy against the forces of repression
and Fascism, but were ighting for the survival of art and culture in
free societies.56
he volunteers who joined the Croatian armed forces during the Yugoslav
Wars of the 1990s, though less is known about them in general, boosted local
morale despite their small numbers. As Professor Ozren Žunec, who during the
war served in the Zagreb Defense Command, has pointed out:
54. “he absorption of Machal in Israel,” 12 April 1949, ile 240, 580/1956, IDFA; Lee
Harris to J. Voet, 27 June 1949, J24/132, CZA.
55. Daniel Cohen, “Les volontaires anglo-américains dans l’armée israélienne,” conference:
Se battre à l’étranger pour des idées, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, 12–14 April 2012.
56. Valentine Cunningham, “Introduction,” in Spanish Front: Writers on the Civil War, ed. V.
Cunningham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), xxii.
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I felt somehow that foreign volunteers were a symbol that the world
has not totally forgotten what was happening in Croatia. In autumn
of 1991 Croatia felt alone and abandoned by the international
community, and foreigners in HV [Croatian army] were a sign,
however small, that there are some people in the world who care.57
Compared to these examples, the Machal volunteers’ external propaganda value
was limited. During most of the war, the presence of foreigners in the IDF was
not broadly advertized in the press, at least not by Israeli oicials, because many
of the volunteers were in breach of the law in their home states. As noted above,
the British Foreign Enlistment Act and the American Neutrality Act prevented
citizens from these countries from engaging in military service abroad. As many of
the volunteers intended to return to their country of origin after completing their
service, the Israeli press remained fairly silent about Machal during the irst ten
months of the war. he London-based Jewish Chronicle similarly adopted a cautious
approach and did not discuss the departure of British Jews to ight for Israel. It
did, however, report the launch of a “South African League for Hagana,” which
sought to “enroll all volunteers who would be prepared to leave for Palestine after
May 15 [1948].”58 Ben Gurion loosened the reins a little towards the end of the
war and mentioned the contribution of foreigners to the war efort in a couple
of speeches in October 1948.59 At this stage, the press still tried to camoulage
Machal. For instance, when the Israeli Air Force celebrated its irst anniversary on
26 October 1948, the English-language pro-Zionist daily Palestine Post and other
local newspapers mentioned the contribution to the cause of pilots who had lown in
the British, American, South African, and Canadian air forces during World War II.
But the fact that these were foreign volunteers, rather than newly arrived immigrants
or Israelis who had served abroad, was purposely not mentioned.60 Internationally,
the irst public acknowledgment regarding the presence of foreigners in the IDF
came on 9 December 1948, at a luncheon of the Anglo-American Press Association
in Paris, attended by Israel’s Foreign Minister, Moshe Shertok. Shertok asked that
most of his talk be kept of the record, but was willing to state that “foreigners made
up less than 10 per cent” of the Israeli armed forces. He added that there were
“Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers from many countries, including Britain and the
Dominions,” while stressing that none came from the USSR. Shertok concluded by
saying: “People had gone to ight in Spain; why should they not come to Israel?”61
57. Arielli, “In search of meaning,” 10.
58. “Soldiers for Hagana,” Jewish Chronicle, 9 April 1948, 10. In South Africa the recruitment of volunteers beneitted from the pro-Zionist attitude of the government of Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts and could thus be carried out openly.
59. “Ben Gurion: Israel arose by ‘the strength that is within,’” Palestine Post, 3 October 1948,
4; Ben Gurion, Behilachem Yisrael, 287–88.
60. M. W. Jacobs, “It’s Israel Air Force’s Day,” Palestine Post, 26 October 1948, 4.
61. “Less than 10% of Israel’s army are foreigners,” Palestine Post, 9 December 1948, 1;
“Amended UK resolution,” Jewish Chronicle, 10 December 1948, 20.
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As the ighting ended in early 1949, the Jewish press both in Israel and abroad
began to discuss the role of foreign volunteers in the war more openly, and started
to make use of the term Machal, which had not been mentioned thus far.62 Overall,
though the machalniks were not kept secret, the Israeli leadership preferred caution
over the beneits of external propaganda.
Evidence regarding Machal’s contribution to local morale is mixed, depending
to a great extent on the settings of a multitude of encounters and interactions. A
number of veterans recalled being greeted with admiration.63 However, some of the
IDF’s internal correspondence also reveals tensions between locals and foreigners as
a result of incompatible expectations, conlicting perceptions of how best to organize
and train the Israeli military, and even competition over command posts in the air
force and navy.64 A mixed picture also emerged from the irst meeting of the “Old
Machalniks” veterans’ association in London in December 1949. “Because of our
English background, they didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms,” one veteran
told the Jewish Chronicle, adding that “we were a bit awkward too.”65 Further proof
that propaganda was not the crux of Machal’s contribution is the fact that, save for a
few exceptions, the volunteers did not igure prominently in postwar historiography
or in Israeli collective memory. As alluded to earlier, in the 1980s Bercuson pointed
out that “the roles played by foreign volunteers in the ighting and by many Jews
outside Palestine in providing much-needed military supplies—has been all but
ignored, even in Israel.” A monument in Israel, commemorating the names of the
119 foreigners who had died during the war, was only erected in 1993.66
Did Israel’s foreign ighters help to solve a manpower crisis, as other
transnational soldiers have done in previous conlicts? At the beginning of World
War II, when the Wafen SS recruited volunteers from beyond Germany’s prewar
borders, only “Volksdeutsche” and individuals who supposedly hailed from similarly
“pure” races were admitted. However, as the war became protracted and as ranks
needed illing, the recruitment of “non-Germanic” volunteers began in the Baltic
States, Bosnia, and Ukraine. Eventually, in March 1944, Hitler gave an order
authorizing SS chief Heinrich Himmler to liberate any POW who volunteered
for armed service in the Wafen-SS.67 Similarly, during the Winter War between
62. See, for instance: “Anglo-Jews fought in Israel,” Jewish Chronicle, 29 January 1949, 6;
“British Jews in Israeli forces,” Jewish Chronicle, 18 February 1949, 15; “he American citizenship of volunteers in the Israeli army will not be denied,” Hazofe, 25 March 1949.
63. Interview with Faye Surovich, 21 December 2010.
64. Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence,” p. 34, IDFA. For evidence of dissatisfaction among Aliyah Bet oicials with their pre-1948 American volunteers, see Halamish,
“American volunteers,” 94, 98–101.
65. “‘Old Machalniks’ forgather,” Jewish Chronicle, 16 December 1949, 9.
66. Bercuson, he Secret Army, xiii; Markovitzky, Machal, 40–41.
67. Jean-Luc Leleu, “From the Nazi Party’s Shock Troop to the ‘European’ Mass Army:
he Wafen-SS Volunteers,” in War Volunteering in Modern Times: From the French Revolution to
the Second World War, ed. Christine G. Krüger and Sonja Levsen (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave,
2011), 234.
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Finland and the USSR, Finnish embassies were initially very selective about the
type and number of foreign volunteers they accepted. However, when the situation
at the front became grave in early 1940, Helsinki changed its directives, broadening
the criteria for potential volunteers, and emphasizing only that they ought to be
willing to serve in the infantry.68 Foreign ighters could also be used to solve
manpower shortages at speciic junctures in a conlict. In early November 1936,
when Nationalist forces advanced on Madrid and the Republican government
of Largo Caballero left the city, the International Brigades played a key role in
defending the Spanish capital and warding of the attack.69
It would be diicult to argue that Machal had served a similar purpose.
Contrary to the myth of the small but highly motivated Israeli David, who had
confronted the large but inefective Arab Goliath, a notion that gained currency
in Israel in postwar decades but has since been debunked by several historians,
the IDF did not sufer from personnel shortages. Conscription among Israeli
Jews was introduced on 21 May 1948 and, by the end of that year, the IDF had
recruited 108,261 men and women.70 It should therefore come as no surprise
that, when the nineteen-year-old Zeev Feliswasser ofered to enlist in London,
he was told abruptly: “Look, we don’t need cannon-fodder, we have enough
cannon-fodder.”71 Foreigners who did make a substantial numerical contribution
to the IDF, and who did solve manpower shortages in certain instances, were the
Gachal recruits. Gachal (an acronym of the Hebrew words Giyus Chutz La’aretz—
Overseas Recruitment) was drawn up from would-be immigrants who resided
in Displaced Persons camps in Europe and British detention camps in Cyprus.
According to Hannah Yablonka’s calculation, some 22,300 Eastern European
Holocaust survivors joined the IDF through Gachal. hese recruits were treated
with far less consideration than the Western machalniks.72 Indeed, while the latter
could, in some cases, have some inluence on which unit they would be assigned to
and beneitted from a number of material privileges, Gachal recruits, it has often
been argued, were sent to the frontline without adequate training.73
If the Machal volunteers did not serve a propaganda purpose or solve a
manpower crisis, perhaps they provided the IDF with some sort of qualitative
advantage over the enemy; a contribution in expertise rather than in numbers?
68. T 6572/9, Finnish National Archives. I am grateful to Kristo Karvinen for this information.
69. Gustav Regler, he Owl of Minerva, trans. Norman Denny (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959), 283; R. Dan Richardson, “he Defense of Madrid: Mysterious Generals, Red Front
Fighters, and the International Brigades,” Military Afairs 43 (1979): 178–85.
70. “Recruitment: organizational problems” [ July 1949], ile no. 570, 852/1951, IDFA.
71. Interview with Zeev Feliswasser, 20 December 2010.
72. Hannah Torok-Yablonka, “he recruitment of Holocaust survivors during the War of
Independence,” Journal of Israeli History 13 (1992): 44.
73. For more on the controversy surrounding the level of training of Gachal soldiers who
were sent into battle, see, for instance: Gershon Rivlin, “Not cannon fodder” [in Hebrew],
80/34/93, HA.
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his has certainly been the position of Zionist leaders and historians alike. After
the war Ben Gurion declared that:
In spite of the contribution made by Israeli boys, Israel would not
have been able to build up an air force and operate it without the
assistance extended by volunteers from abroad, who had acquired
their experience in the service of the allied power [sic] during
World War II.74
Historian Markovitzky was even more generous in his appraisal:
heir expertise in a wide range of ighting skills, their familiarity
with the military framework, and the combat experience of many
were key factors which contributed signiicantly to making it
possible for the IDF, in an emergency period, while ighting was
still in progress, to establish a regular army, in a relatively short
time, which went on to win the war.75
A more rigid and less sympathetic assessment can be found in an internal study
composed by Mordecai Nisyahu for the IDF’s historical research branch in the
early 1950s. When weighing up Machal’s wartime role, Nisyahu concluded that:
here is some exaggeration towards both extremes concerning
Machal’s contribution in the War of Independence. As it turns
out, Machal brought an overwhelming contribution to the
War of Independence only in the air force—but in the air force
the contribution was decisive. And in this area the [inancial]
expenditures were justiied. Not so in other areas where many
[volunteers] were brought without a [suitable] profession and
without exceptional military experience.76
he common denominator between the three assessments mentioned above
is the technical expertise and operational experience that at least some of the
volunteers were able to provide, particularly those who joined the air force.
his qualitative contribution becomes more apparent when it is set against the
capabilities of the military forces possessed by the Arab states. In May 1948, the
Royal Egyptian Air Force was the strongest among all the combatant states. It
had 40 Spitire ighters, ten C-47 Dakota aircraft capable of carrying bombs
and various other transport, trainer, and liaison aircraft. In terms of airpower the
Jewish side was initially very weak. When the Sherut Avir (Air Service) of the
Haganah was established in autumn 1947, it consisted of only 11 light aircraft
in various stages of obsolescence. Egyptian air raids that followed the Israeli
declaration of independence further crippled what was now the Israeli Air Force
(IAF).77 Planes suitable for modern warfare had to be smuggled into the country
74. Quoted in: Nordeen, Fighters over Israel, 25.
75. Markovitzky, Machal, 41. For a similar appraisal, see also Rosen, In Quest, 69–70.
76. Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence,” p. 32, IDFA.
77. Nordeen, Fighters over Israel, 6–16; Bercuson, he Secret Army, 24; Haim Barkai, “Ha‘alut ha-realit shel milhemet ha-‘atsma`ut,” in Israel’s War of Independence 1948–1949, ed. Alon
Kadish, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 2004), 759–60 [in Hebrew].
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NIR ARIELLI
Foreign and Israeli pilots in IAF Squadron 101 [Courtesy of World Machal]
to evade the weapons embargo imposed by the UN, and secret training courses
for Israeli pilots were conducted in Czechoslovakia and Italy. he appearance of
trained foreign pilots, who were put into action almost upon arrival, clearly made a
diference. Markovitzky argues that about 70 percent of the personnel of the IAF
were overseas volunteers and, according to Rosen, approximately 1,000 foreigners
served in the organization throughout the war. hey fulilled various roles: some
100 airmen helped to bring aircraft and weapons that were purchased abroad
into the country; 167 foreign volunteers worked as ground crews in Israel and
in the light school in Czechoslovakia; and more than 170 took part in bombing,
reconnaissance, and other combat lights.78 Foreigners commanded squadrons and
air force bases and held various other key positions. Lily Myerson had no trouble
serving as a secretary in the air force; “I was needed because most of the work was
in English.”79 By the end of the war the Israeli side enjoyed aerial superiority,
carrying out bombing raids on Cairo, Amman, and Damascus. Volunteer pilots
even shot down a number of British RAF aircraft that were based in Egypt. In
Operation Yoav of October 1948 the Israeli air force carried out 240 sorties in
contrast to the mere 30 to 50 carried out by the Egyptians.80 Foreign volunteers
78. Markovitzky, Machal, 22; Rosen, In Quest, 211.
79. Interview with Lily Myerson, 23 December 2010.
80. Nordeen, Fighters over Israel, 22–24; Ben Gurion, Behilachem Yisrael, 287–88; Morris, 1948,
232; Derek J. Penslar, Jews and the Military (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013),
230. he air forces of the Arab states were partially grounded owing to a lack of spare parts.
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he IAF’s operations
room [Courtesy of
Anita Koifman]
also played an important role in establishing Israel’s anti-aircraft defenses. Moshe
Ettenberg (Eitan) from the U.S. founded the air force’s irst radar unit and
commanded a group of 40 overseas volunteers. Female volunteers from Britain
and South Africa trained new Israeli recruits to become radar operators. Anita
Koifman, who helped to design the IAF’s operations room using the model of the
RAF’s Fighter Command headquarters where she had served during World War
II, taught plotting.81
In comparison to subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, the role of the IAF in 1948
was not as pivotal. Air power was supplementary to rather than a leading element in
this conlict.82 Yet the IAF’s foreign volunteers could still lay claim to having made
a real diference for two main reasons. First of all the weapons and ammunition
they lew into Israel were crucial to the ledgling state’s war efort. Secondly, the
institutional foundations they established helped to mold the organization and
its modus operandi; an impact which lasted long after the war ended. his is a
fairly exceptional contribution which becomes apparent when other instances of
transnational volunteering are examined.
Foreign pilots have, of course, participated in other conlicts. he French writer
André Malraux, though not an airman himself, helped to recruit approximately 40
French, Belgian, Czech, and other foreign pilots and technicians for the Escuadrilla
España which fought for the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War.
81. Markovitzky, Machal, 26–27; interview with Anita Koifman, 22 December 2010.
82. Penslar, Jews and the Military, 229–30.
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Other international volunteers lew for the Republic as part of the 2ª Escuadrilla
Lafayette. Both squadrons saw action in late summer 1936, achieving limited
success in confrontations with Nationalist forces, before receding in importance
with the arrival of aircraft and pilots from the Soviet Union.83 he latter were
part of a government-sanctioned state efort, rather than transnational volunteers,
and can therefore be excluded from our comparison. If we focus on the voluntary
international support the Spanish Republic’s air force received, then it becomes
diicult to argue that Malraux and his men provided a qualitative edge that the
enemy did not have. Few in number and lying Dewoitine and Potez aircraft that
were inferior to the German- and Italian-made planes serving the Nationalist side,
their chances in the long run were never high. Moreover, Malraux and his pilots have
often been criticized, by contemporaries and historians, for being “mercenaries” and
“adventurers” who extracted exorbitant amounts of money for very little action.84
Furthermore, they did not help to create an air force where none existed or establish
institutional foundations which lived on after the end of the conlict.
Machal volunteers also contributed, though to a lesser extent, to the navy
and the army. In the navy, roughly 200 foreigners constituted less than 10 percent
of the manpower. Most of the machalniks who joined did so in the later stages
of the war. Nonetheless, volunteers from abroad held key command positions.
One of them was Paul Shulman, a former U.S. Navy frigate commander, who
became Commander-in-Chief of the infant Israeli navy in October 1948.85
Foreign volunteers were scattered throughout the army. he largest cluster—
approximately 300 men—was in Brigade 7. he commander of the Brigade,
Benjamin Dunkelman, was formerly a Major in the Canadian army. As far as
the professionalization of local Israeli forces is concerned, the foreigners in the
army and navy did not play such a pivotal role as their counterparts in the air
force. However, at various stages of the war, Ben Gurion met with and received
advice from Dunkelman, David “Mickey” Marcus, and Paul Shulman, much as
he did from South African Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Cecil Margo.86
he most efective way to assess the relative importance of Machal is through
a diachronic comparison with the transnational volunteers who fought against
them, on the Arab side. Already before the invasion of May 1948, when the
struggle was still primarily between Palestinian Arabs and Jews, approximately
6,000 to 8,000 Arab volunteers, mainly from Iraq, Syria, and Egypt fought
83. Rémi Skoutelsky, Novedad en el frente: Las Brigadas Internacionales en la guerra civil
(Madrid: Historia, 2006), 45–48; Jesus Salas Larrazabal, Air War over Spain (London: Ian Allan,
1969), 64–66, 76–79.
84. Anthony Beevor, he Battle for Spain (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006), 140;
Michael Alpert, A New International History of the Spanish Civil War (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave, 2004), 42; Raymond Carr, he Spanish Tragedy (London: Weidenfeld, 1993), 136.
85. Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence,” pp. 16–17, IDFA; Ilan, he Origins, 104.
86. Nisyahu, “Machal in the War of Independence,” p. 18, IDFA; Ilan, he Origins, 104;
Freeman-Maloy, “Mahal and the Dispossession,” 50; Ben Gurion, he Restored State of Israel,
205, 256, 264–65, 286.
722 
THE JOURNAL OF
Foreign Volunteers in Israel’s War of 1948
alongside the Palestinian Arabs in Fawzi al-Qawuqji’s Arab Liberation Army
or in units established by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza region.87 From
March 1948 onwards, well over 1,000 Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, and
Libyans tried to make their way to Egypt to take part in the war in Palestine.
hose who volunteered at an early stage in Benghazi received some money from
the local Palestine Defense Committee before being sent to a military depot
in Egypt. One British observer remarked, rather unkindly, that these consisted
of “the town’s unemployed and unemployables.”88 he vast majority of North
African volunteers, who arrived in eastern Libya in May, did not succeed in
reaching the war zone. hey became stranded once the Egyptian border was
closed on 7 June to comply with the UN-brokered ceaseire, which banned the
introduction of ighting personnel into the warring countries. Consequently, in
late June and July, the British authorities in Libya sent the volunteers back to
French North Africa at a considerable cost.89
Another problem which plagued foreign volunteers on the Arab side was very
poor logistics. he Arab Liberation Army (ALA), which was established by the
Arab League in autumn 1947 and included some 4,000 men at its height, sufered
from a poor training regime and discipline problems which were made worse
by a shortage of food, medical supplies, and ammunition. Only half of the force
eventually took part in the ighting, sustaining activity for only a few months and
achieving very little, save for a number of successful attacks on Jewish convoys.
Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood accused ALA soldiers of committing robbery
and rape against the Arab population.90
Hence, while both sides attempted to make use of international supporters
to increase their ighting capabilities, volunteers from non-combatant states
who joined the Arab side were mostly “regional foreign ighters,” coming from
countries bordering on the conlict zone.91 If they were able to take part in the
ighting at all they were deployed mostly in infantry units. hey did not contribute
87. Morris, 1948, 103–4.
88. “Palestine Defence Committee,” [no date], FO 371/69426A, TNA. When North African volunteers for the Arab cause in Palestine irst began to appear in spring 1948, the British authorities in Libya turned a blind eye. hey did not place any obstacles in the way of the
volunteers but also refrained from ofering them any assistance. In early June 1948 the Foreign
Oice pointed out that “we are running the risk of incurring serious international criticism in
permitting these volunteers to leave Cyrenaica.” On 15 June the War Oice reported that the
movement of volunteers between Tunisia and Egypt through Libya had been stopped.
89. WO to C-in-C MELF, 22 June 1948; C-in-C MELF to WO, 2 July 1948, FO
371/69426A, TNA.
90. Matthew Hughes, “Lebanon’s armed forces and the Arab-Israel War, 1948–49,” Journal
of Palestine Studies 24 (2005): 33–36; Morris, 1948, 109; Ilan Pappé, Britain and the Arab-Israeli
Conlict, 1948–51 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1988), 23–24; Ilan Pappé, he Making of the ArabIsraeli Conlict, 1947–51 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1992), 83–84.
91. For a distinction between “regional” and “global” foreign volunteers, see: Hegghammer,
“he Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters,” 59.
MILITARY HISTORY

723
NIR ARIELLI
towards the professionalization of the Arab war efort in the same way that the
Machal volunteers propped-up the Israeli Air Force. he machalniks were “global”
foreign ighters, drawn largely from Diaspora communities in English-, Frenchand Spanish-speaking countries. Despite their heterogeneous makeup and the
diiculties they encountered, the technical know-how and the combat experience
of ex–World War II servicemen and women who joined the Jewish side were an
important asset the adversary did not have. Moreover, the low of volunteers for
Israel was fairly continuous in contrast to the volunteers on the Arab side who
petered-out after the initial wave of enthusiasm in spring 1948. herefore, one way
to describe the role of Machal in 1948 is by pointing out that their input was far
more important than that of the transnational volunteers who fought on the Arab
side. Although some of the volunteers from abroad had no military experience
when they arrived in Israel, and even though the recruitment process was far from
smooth, the machalniks as a group were certainly useful to their Israeli hosts.
Variants of Machal continued to enlist overseas volunteers for the IDF in
the decades that followed the war of 1948, and the practice still exists today,
though Israel’s armed forces have evolved signiicantly since they were established.
he contemporary enlistment of foreigners no longer serves the qualitative and
professionalizing purposes of the past but is, primarily, part of the Zionist efort
to preserve contacts between Israel and Jewish communities abroad. hus, the
military beneit derived from present day foreign volunteers is far smaller than
that of the generation of 1948.
724 
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